UNE VIEILLE MAITRESSE
THE LAST MISTRESS |
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DIRECTOR
Catherine Breillat
SCREENPLAY
Catherine Breillat.
Based on Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly’s
novel Une vieille maîtresse.
CAST
Vellini: Asia Argento
Ryno de Marigny: Fu'ad Ait Aattou
Hermangarde: Roxane Mesquida
La marquise de Flers: Claude Sarraute
La comtesse d'Artelles: Yolande Moreau
Le vicomte de Prony: Michael Lonsdale
Mme de Solcy: Anne Parillaud
Running time: 114’
Production: France, 2007
Rating: Not rated
Gauge: 35mm, DVD (color)
GENRE
Drama
DISTRIBUTOR
New Yorker Films
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“Catherine Breillat has
spent more than 30 years showing a knack for directing individuals
wearing no costumes at all, so it's doubly heartening she knows
precisely what to do with lovesick characters in lavish costumes
in ‘An Old Mistress.’ Here the courtliness and formal
cruelty of 19th-century French manners work in her favor. Breillat
freely stamps her strong and singular feminine insights on a
man's material.”
Lisa Nesselson, Variety |
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The young and dissolute
Ryno de Marigny is betrothed to marry Hermangarde, an extremely
virtuous gem of the French aristocracy. Their future wedding
is on everyone's lips. But some, who wish to prevent the union
despite the young couple's mutual love, whisper that the young
man will never break off his passionate love affair with Vellini,
“a capricious flamenca who can outstare the sun.”Ryno's
attempt to remain faithful to his wife Hermangarde profoundly
fails as Vellini reappears in Ryno's life, offering him the
passion and emotional connection he lacks in his marriage. His
reluctant obsession with Vellini eventually overtakes his conscience,
as he succumbs to the deceitful path of infidelity. In a rush
of confidences, betrayals and secrets, facing conventions and
destiny, feelings will prove their strength to be invincible.
France's foremost provocatrice, Catherine Breillat continues
to surprise as she pursues her career-long interest in the ramifications
of female desire. Breillat's sumptuous adaptation of Jules-Amédée
Barbey d'Aurevilly's Une vieille maîtresse is
set during the reign of Louis Philippe, but this dangerous liaison
is recognizably modern. Disrupting cinematic as well as social
conventions, Breillat's point is anchered in the force of Asia
Argento's carnality.
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| PHOTO New
Yorker Films |
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